Two Rings
by Peanutbutter1
Summary: Memories flood Hilde's mind as she looks at two very significant pieces of jewerly. This is a one shot fic so there won't be anymore chapters. There is some fluff as well as Angst so R&R DM+HS pairing


Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing ****

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing

-This is my first completely Duo and Hilde fic so tell me what you think. It's just a one shot so there won't be anymore chapters.So you won't be confused the Italics means a memory, sort of a flashback. They are not in chronological order. The regular writing is the present. 

****

Two rings

It glittered in the dim light of the moon. I lifted it from my pale ring finger with a shaking hand and held it up toward the sky gazing at it as I twisted it letting the white gold and clear jewel pick up on the light and reflect an array of colors on the wall to my right. It was pretty. A small half a carat ring with a thin white gold band not the traditional gold, no he was never one for tradition. I sighed heavily as I lowered my hand the ring enveloped in my fingers. I squeezed it tightly until I could feel the setting digging into my palm. Only when I couldn't stand it anymore did I open my hand again. There were small speaks of blood around the circular wound it had created. 

__

I giggled my voice wafting into the night, as I looked on the ring and his oh so serious expression. He was never serious, not my Duo. His dark violet eyes glittered with hope I seemed to have dashed with my untimely laughter because they darkened. Immediately I stopped laughing and smiled as I lifted the ring out of the box and slipped it on my finger. "White gold?" I asked as I admired the way it glittered on my finger. It was perfect. 

"I don't like tradition." Duo mumbled not sure of my answer yet his knee still bent and his eyes still watching mine for a reaction. "Do you like it?" 

I looked away from my hand and back at him again my elation overflowing my senses. "I love!" I yelled at him and launched myself into his arms even though he was on the ground. The sudden movement made us both fall backwards hitting our backs on the ground. I giggled again. I couldn't help it I was so happy, and when I was happy I laughed. In fact any strong emotion made me laugh. It was strange I could laugh like a manic when someone died just because I didn't know what else to do and on the inside I would be crying. Maybe that's why we were so perfect for each other. He laughed away his fear and hurt and I did the same. 

"I love you Hilde." He whispered heatedly as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me tighter against him. 

He did seem to care that we were in the middle of a very public restaurant lying in a very suggestive position on the concrete floor, but as he said before he didn't like tradition. I smiled wider and bent down, not caring either and captured his lips in a sweet kiss. "I love you too." I mumbled as I finished it with a kiss on the cheek, "and I'd love to be your wife." He laughed at that and got to his feet pulling me up with him. He left the money on the table; he always paid in cash. He never wanted to be in dept. He figured not having credit cards was the best way to stay out of that problem. My Duo, never doing things that normal people thought routine.

I shifted the ring to sit in-between my index finger and thumb I looked at it again and laid it gently on the windowsill as I turned my gaze back toward the moon. The moon with it's many faces, all of which reflect something different, some sort of mood. The beautiful blue light that it cast on the occupants of earth, the absence of light I bestowed on the world every month, dark beautiful and mysterious just like Duo. 

__

"Babe you awake?" 

I shifted in my sleep my hardly able to pry my eyes open to look at my love. I tried a shaky smile when I saw the way he was looking at me his eyes wide and his hair falling in his eyes, but I ended up yawning instead. He put his hand on my cheek and caressed it softly. I leaned into his touch and let my eyes close for a moment. 

"I'm sorry I woke you," He pressed as he removed his hand and my eyes once again came open, "but I want you to look at this." 

"Look at what?" I asked as he pulled on my arm and brought me to a sitting position. I still wasn't fully awake. I clutched the sheet to my chest and brought it with me as I followed him off the bed his hand loosely wrapped around mine. He led me to the window and lowered me in a wicker chair beside the window and sat on the arm of the chair beside me. 

"Do you see it babe?" He asked me urgently and looked back down at me and smiled. "Look up." 

More to humor him and to get back to sleep I looked up. The moon was bright and full hanging in the sky and casting its ethereal blue light across the ground below the window. The sight was beautifully breathtaking and I couldn't help but come awake at the sight of it. 

"I love the moon." He said absently perhaps more to himself than me, but I nodded anyway and reached my hand out and took his arm underneath my fingers. "This is the first full moon we've seen together," He paused, "that is with us being married." 

I smiled and looked up at him. Sometimes he was so sweet. She didn't even think he knew it. It was some sort of natural charm he carried with him. 'The Maxwell Charm' as he would call it, but his idea of charm was nothing like his natural charm. 

"I used to watch the moon all the time during the war." He started and lifted his hand to take mine in his and stroked his thumb over the back wrist as he spoke. "I loved the way the moon looks from earth. It's peaceful, I think it's my favorite thing about space." 

We rarely talked of the war. It was a trying and difficult time for the both of us. Me wanting so badly to prove myself, to do my absolute best to make sure everyone knew I was strong and I could hold my own, and Duo just trying to survive. I had never realized the demons he carried with him. The ones that ripped at his very soul and made him believe that there was no God, but only death and destruction. It was odd how we never talked about any of this before we got married, but afterward it just seemed to flood out and with each new conversation we grew closer and our love deeper. 

Deep in thought I didn't notice him leaning in to kiss me until his lips were on my ear, nibbling it gently. I giggled a little as a stray stand of hair tickled my neck and reached a hand up to run it through his fallen locks. I could feel his smile against the side of face and I turned my head to capture his lips in mine. We made love under the blue light of the moon. It was almost as if he'd planned. Maybe he had. I loved that about him. He was completely unpredictable. 

I grip the sill as I pulled my gaze from the moon back to my finger again. The white gold wedding band was still on my finger missing the presence of my engagement ring. There was a patch of white skin where the thin band had been for so long. I rubbed it absently missing the feel of the ring on my finger, but refusing to put it back on. Grasping the lone wedding band, I pulled it free of my finger with a brief amount of struggle and lay it beside the engagement ring. They both meant so much to me perhaps neither one more than the other. They looked perfect together like that. I drew my legs into the rocking chair and wrapped my arms around my knees as I leaned my chin on my knees and stared at the two rings. 

__

"You see this Hilde." Duo pulled the two rings from the case and slipped on my finger and the other on his. "You see how perfect they look beside each other! It looks just right with your engagement ring." 

I had to agree with him. It did look perfect. They complimented each other, a perfect match. I smiled genuinely when I knew we'd finally found the perfect ones. "Perfect." I whispered as I looked at them from a distance as I forced him to stretch his arm out as I did mine. "I'm glad I brought you along after all." Hilde joked as he started to giggle at his hurt expression. 

"Well, I know your husband is nothing compared to me, but I still hope we can see each other after you get married. You know for a quickie or something." He raised a brow and slapped my butt smartly. 

I looked up just in time to see the clerk looking at us in disgust and I swatted Duo away. "Don't say stuff like that." I scolded him barely able to keep the humor out of my voice. "That woman thinks we're awful." 

"I'm not the awful one." Duo groused. "You're the one cheating on your husband to be with his best friend." 

I heard a gasp escape the clerk's lips as she over heard Duo's comment. "Hush, Duo." I managed sternly, but upon seeing the overly lustful look he was giving me I broke down and started to laugh with him. "I don't want this getting back to my husband." I paused, putting on a serious face and turned to the nosey clerk. "Could you ring these up." I asked her patiently and could hardly keep a straight face at her expression. Duo had lost it though. He was laughing outright and I elbowed him trying to keep him quite but it only made him laugh harder and it wasn't long before I joined him. His laugh was so infectious.

I felt the tears building in my eyes before I could stop them. The flowed down my cheeks as I continued to look at the rings the sobs escaping my throat despite my efforts to keep them pushed down. My vision blurred and the two perfect rings disappeared in a kaleidoscope of silver and blue. I didn't want to cry any more. I didn't want to think about this, but I did and I pulled my self from my tight ball away from the offending rings and wiped my face angrily. It didn't help much my cheeks were already soaked and there was no changing that. I sighed as I embraced the fact that I was going to cry there was no stopping it once it started. 

"Duo I don't want you to go." I whispered as I placed my hand on his duffel bag and dragged it out of his reach. I was sick of playing games. I didn't want to laugh and play with him begging him to stay this time I was serious. I felt like something horrible was going to happen. 

"Listen Hilde, I don't need this. You know I love you and would do anything for you, but the colonies need me. The Preventers need Heero and I to check out this threat. I wouldn't go if I didn't think I needed to be there. I can't abandon them." He sighed and reached behind my back pulling the bag from my fingers which I let him do easily enough. 

"It's just that this time something tells me not to let you go." I pleaded with him tears building in my eyes. I usually didn't cry that much. I still didn't like to do it, but I couldn't help it. I knew something and he wasn't listening to me. 

Duo lifted his head from his packing to look at me. He knew I was crying even though I refused to look at him. He stopped and shoved the bag over as he sat beside me and gathered my in his arms. "Don't do this babe." He whispered as he smoothed my hair. "I don't want our parting to end on a bad note. I want to go off knowing that you love me okay. I don't want to leave with you heart broken." 

I sighed knowing that he was going to go anyway. "I'm sorry for being such a baby." I explained as I pulled away from him for a moment. "It was that, well this time I had the feeling." 

"You always have this feeling." Duo spouted smirking. "And I always come back." 

"I know." I looked up drying my eyes and smiled. "I love you. Come back as soon as you can."

He grinned at that and gave me a lengthy kiss on the lips. "Love you too, I'll be back as soon as I can." 

I watched him get on the plane and head off for the colony with Heero just behind him. Relena was there with me watching Heero go and I knew that she was against the whole thing but then again Heero went on a lot more missions than Duo did. I stood there until the plane disappeared and something sank in my stomach as I watched it fade away I felt like I was never going to see him again. 

The rings were still there when my vision cleared and I was able to see again. They were still sitting there a symbol of the love me hand and of the love we lost. I hated them. I hated that what they stood for didn't last. Angrily I reached out sweeping both ring in my fingers and closed my fist around them tightly, before I could even thing I hurled them out my window letting all my anger and frustration seep out in the through. Not until I drew back an empty hand did I realize my mistake. 

"No." I whispered shaking my head at my stupidity and I dashed down the steps. I had to find them. What had I done?

I was living in some sort of horrible nightmare. I didn't know what to think, as I stood there only able to focus on the fact that I was supposed to be breathing. 'Breathe Hilde.' I told myself repeatedly. 'Just breathe.' It seemed simple enough. I never had to think of it before. I just let the air escape my lungs and fill them back up again, but all the sudden I didn't know if I could that. I felt my fingers start to tremble as they were wrapped loosely around a single black rose. A black rose, death. 

I opened my eyes letting a few tears escape from under my lids before I could stop them and saw the black shiny coffin in front of me. 'Oh God Hilde just breathe.' It was hard to do now my throat was so clogged I wanted to cry. Inside that coffin was my life. My vision was failing me and my ears didn't seem to be working as the priest just to my right began reciting something. I didn't know the words I didn't care. None of this was giving my comfort. He was still gone. No matter what they said he was still gone and no one would feel it as much I did at that moment. 

I felt the rings pressing against the sides of my other fingers and shivered as I remembered him in his coffin. His hands on his chest as he slept eternally his young face not even creased with a wrinkle yet. The ring was still on his finger, a symbol of his love, their union and the only thing that would be eternally theirs. 

Before I even realized it the funeral was over. The priest stopped his sermon and the coffin started to go into the ground. A suffocating sense of panic filled me as I watched the black box disappear into the ground. 'No!' my mind screamed, 'Don't leave me. Duo, I love you! You can't go without me! How do I live without you!' but I just stood there the rose shaking in my fingers. I didn't want to let him go. I didn't want him to be in there. I didn't want any of this to be real. 

A tear dripped of the end of my nose and fell onto my hand and I looked at the flower. Black like death, black like the 'God of death.' I shook as I forced my fingers to open and the flower floated in what seemed like slow motion until it hit the top of the coffin and settled on the lid. 'I don't want to let him go though. I don't want to be without him. I told me he was coming back.' 

I wanted to jump in there with him. I wanted to rip open the lid and find that the coffin was empty, but it wasn't. I knew it wasn't though and deep down I prayed for there to be a mistake. He wasn't supposed to die and I wasn't supposed to alone. 

"Let's go."

I lifted my head from the deep hole to see Relena at my side. Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. She was trying to be strong for me, but I didn't want to leave not yet. I ignored her tugging as I continued to look at the grave. 'He can't be gone.' As I watched someone began shoveling dirt on the coffin staining the black a deep brown. I watched all the air leaving my lungs and I forgot to inhale. I dropped to my knees. Relena kept me from hitting too hard, but I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't just stand there and breathe. A strangled cry escaped my throat and I called his name. I didn't want him to be gone.

My barefeet skidded across the hardwood floors in the hallway as I dashed out the door tears streaming down my cheeks. How could I do that? Why? I wasn't ready to let him go yet. I didn't want to let him go. I pulled open the front door and ran into the yard. The grass was cool and wet against my feet but I didn't care. I had to find them. As soon as I neared my window I dropped to my knees searching with all my might my fingers running through the blades of grass with a zealous hunger. I had to find them. 

My knees began to ache and my back hurt, but I couldn't stop, not until I found them. After what seemed like hours of relentless searching I dropped to the grass curling in a ball and cried. I threw them away. Why did I throw them away? The tears rolled down my face mercilessly and I had only the light of the moon to comfort me. Duo wasn't there anymore. I would never hear the sound of his soft musical laughter. I would never feel his lips on mine. He was gone and there was nothing left. As my sobs started to fade, when I no more tears to shed I looked up at the sky and remembered his words. 

_"I love the moon. This is the first full moon we've seen together, that is us being married." _

I looked at the moon marveling at the beauty it still when my world was so dark and ugly. Stretched out on my back I remembered the way the moonlight had light his face. I remember his voice. Closing my eyes I pretended that he could hear me. 

"This is the first full moon we've seen away from each other," I whispered my voice breaking, "that is with you being gone." The sob escaped my throat and I closed my eyes exhausted from crying and remembering Duo. I closed my eyes and let sleep over take me. I didn't want to wake up again. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~```

I felt the warmth of the sun on my cheeks and lifted my lids. My body was damp and chilled and for a moment I didn't know why. Then I remembered how I had searched so frantically for the rings and hadn't been able to find them. A stinging pain radiated through my body as I thought of the loss and I squeezed my hand shut. As I did I felt something in my palm. Prying my swollen eyes open I looked at my hand as I dragged the closed fist into my view. As I opened my pale I caught sight of something silver between my fingers. When I opened them I almost cried again. My rings, our rings, were in the palm of my hand. I squeezed them tightly and lifted my closed fist to my lips and kissed it. 

"Thank you, Duo."

****

Well that was my first Duo and Hilde fic…you know completely Duo and Hilde fic. So what did you think? 

__


End file.
